Bruce Degen, Illustrator of the "Magic School Bus" Books, Dies at 79

11/12/2024 03:00 PM

Degen, whose art accompanied the beloved stories written by Joanna Cole, also authored and illustrated children's classics like 'Jamberry'

Bruce Degen, best known for illustrating the Magic School Bus book series, has died.

The author and artist died on Nov. 7 at his Newtown, Conn. home from pancreatic cancer, his family confirmed. Degen was 79.

Degen was born on June 14, 1945 in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. He showed an inclination for art at an early age, and attended the High School of Art & Music, now known as LaGuardia High School, in New York City. Degen received his bachelor's degree in art from Cooper Union in 1966 and his master's degree from Pratt Institute in 1975. He worked as an art teacher in New York City while continuing to do freelance illustration work.

"I was in art school doing very serious art, and I didn't know what I was going to do. I said to myself, 'Why did I do art in the first place?' It was fun," Degen told Science.org in 2020. "And I realized that, in my heart of hearts, I wanted to do children's books because they could be funny and beautiful."

Degen wrote and illustrated his first book, Aunt Possum and the Pumpkin Man, in 1977, and later illustrated books like Malcolm Hall's Forecast (1977), Jane Yolen's Commander Toad in Space (1980) and Nancy White Colstrom's Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? (1986). In 1982, Degen wrote and illustrated the beloved children's book Jamberry.

In 1984, publisher Scholastic paired Degen with writer Joanna Cole to illustrate the books that would become the Magic School Bus series. The series, first published in 1986 with The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks, follows the eccentric teacher Ms. Frizzle, who takes her class on field trips to locations like outer space, the ocean and the human body. The books teaches lessons on topics like biology, physics and earth science for a young audience. Cole died in 2020 at 75.

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"Truthfully, in the beginning, it was darn hard work. All that research, all that struggling to juggle the components, all that rewriting and resketching — some book sketch dummies have five layers of rewrites and reillustrations," Degen told Science.org. "But working all those years with Joanna, what we got to do together … what more could you ask for?"

The Magic School Bus books have sold more than 95 million copies, according to the New York Times, and are in print in 13 countries. The series was turned into a popular PBS animated show starring Lily Tomlin as the voice of Ms. Frizzle, which aired from 1994 to 1997, as well as the Netflix series The Magic School Bus Rides Again, which aired from 2017 to 2021.

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"Bruce Degen was one-of-a-kind. We have lost a true pioneer of children's bookmaking," VP and editor at large of Crown Books for Young Readers Phoebe Yeh, who worked with Degen at Scholastic, told Publisher's Weekly. "Thankfully we have his books and characters: Jamberry, Jesse Bear, Ms. Frizzle and Arnold, who will live on, forever."

"I will miss Bruce's stories about the old days and how he'd unfurl them over a long lunch," added Scholastic Press VP, Publisher and editorial director David Levithan. "I will miss the twinkle in his eye as he road-tested a new joke for Arnold or planned a new outfit for Ms. Frizzle. But hopefully I won't miss the joy of it all, because that's what I plan to hold on to — and what generation after generation of young readers will get to experience whenever they hop on board."

In addition to the Magic School Bus series, Degen wrote and illustrated the 2012 children's book I Gotta Draw. 

"You can do a painting, and it might end up being on somebody's wall, but if you do a book, it goes out into the world," Degen told Reading Rockets in 2008. "It's in libraries. It's in homes. There's nothing like that. There's nothing like the fact that you've actually become part of somebody's family life."

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Degen is survived by his wife, Christine, who he married in 1968, and their sons, Benjamin and Alex.